Date of Award

Summer 2019

Project Type

Thesis

Program or Major

Justice Studies

Degree Name

Master of Arts

First Advisor

Katie Edwards

Second Advisor

Ellen Cohn

Third Advisor

Emily Waterman

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine how demographic, psychosocial, and behavioral factors are associated with bystander opportunity among adolescents, and how bystander opportunity changes across one year. Participants for the study consisted of 1,322 adolescents who took an initial survey (Wave 1) and a survey one year later (Wave 4). Participants were 50.3% (n=658) female, 14.1% (n=182) identified as a sexual minority, and 88.9% (n=1140) identified as white, non-Hispanic, 11.1% (n=143) identified as non-white or Hispanic, with the mean age of 15.7 (SD = 1.2) years at Wave 1. Bystander opportunity was examined by measuring six individual opportunities. I hypothesized that demographic, psychosocial, and behavioral factors will be associated with the likelihood of bystander opportunity over time. Additionally, I predicted that adolescents will be more likely to have intervention opportunity types at Wave 4, compared to Wave 1 due to increase in age. Partially consistent with hypotheses, minority status, greater victim empathy, and binge drinking were consistently correlated with opportunity to intervene across all six opportunity variables. These results contribute to bystander theory by illustrating factors associated with opportunity and have implications for bystander intervention programming.

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